Chapter 3 #2
I need water. And sleep. But I don’t have anything to drink, and sleep is a long way off, so dealing with it is all that’s left to do.
And by dealing with it, I’m simply going to ignore it.
I scratch along my throat, desperate for a cigarette, but class will start any minute, and I can’t afford to miss any more.
I’ve already been absent all week and need to catch up before I’m completely lost as to what’s going on.
I make my way further down the hall into the classroom and drop down into a chair in the back, away from the groups of people that have already surmounted. That’s the one thing I loathe about university… There’s always so many fucking people all the time.
The chair next to me creaks, and I bite back a groan, already knowing who’s beside me before she speaks just from her smell alone—sickly sweet vanilla and flowers. “Hey, Peris.”
“Skylar.” I blink slowly through the film covering my eyes.
“Will I see you after practice tonight?”
I finally remove my gaze from the smeared white board to her blue eyes and mousey brown hair, the opposite of everything he is.
I can’t look at someone with blonde hair the same. Or barely at all, honestly.
Makes me fucking sick.
“I don’t know, will you?”
“Peris…” She lowers her head and peers up at me through her darkened lashes, and I’m forced to look away, my stomach curdling for reasons unknown… or very known, but I refuse to think about why.
“What?” I snap.
“You and I both know that it’s up to you.” She sighs heavily, and I roll my eyes.
“I’ll let you know.”
“All right…” She trails off, and I feel her eyes trailing over my body, perceiving me, and it makes my skin crawl.
But then, the professor comes in and class starts and most of the chatter fades into the background as she drones on about shit I can’t really retain but still write notes on for later when I can hopefully focus better.
Instead, my mind drifts back to high school, back when it was all so different. When it all seemed so fucking hard—because it was—but looking back, it was quite easy. Easier than it is now, anyway.
It was all just existing and fighting who I was and who I wanted to be.
It was all about Luke and what he did to me and how it changed me into someone I didn’t want to be… someone I couldn’t be.
Until it became all about him.
And then, he shattered everything I thought I knew and became my fucking life.
Abel Silver wrapped every ugly part of himself around me and made his home within my chest, buried as deep as he could get. And then, he ripped himself out and left a gaping hole where he used to be and left me.
The scars we shared made me bleed.
And now, this is who I am.
An empty vessel of his pain and destruction.
By the time class is finally over, my skin is itching to get the fuck out and away from it all—and it’s only the first class of the day.
I rush out of the room and through the halls as quickly as I can until I’m out in the crisp autumn air, a cigarette to my lips before the door is even closed behind me.
“Those things will kill you,” Gabe says from behind me, and I can’t bite back my groan.
“Jesus Christ, you’re fucking everywhere. All the time,” I complain.
“Mhm,” he hums noncommittedly.
“I don’t need a damn babysitter.”
“Your drinking problem suggests otherwise,” he retorts.
My footsteps falter, and I nearly trip over my next step. “I don’t have a problem,” I mumble, pulling a long drag off my smoke.
Gabe’s quiet for a long moment. So long, my skin starts to crawl. “That’s a joke, right? You’re joking?”
“No, Gabriel. I’m not,” I snap out, jaw clenched tight as I crush the filter between my teeth, tasting bitterness as it seeps into my tongue.
Gabe starts laughing. It’s boisterous and chaotic. I rear back slightly at the volume and hysteria that seems to leak from his pores as it continues on for what seems like longer than it should.
“Wow, that was funny,” he says easily, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes.
“I’m glad you find me so humorous,” I mutter, feeling confused and irritated as I flick my cigarette butt across the courtyard.
“It’s pathetic, really,” he drawls, and I freeze, feet stalling in the middle of the damp grass.
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, come off it, Peris,” he says tiredly. “You’re a fucking alcoholic, and you’re killing yourself.”
His words draw me up short. Words of defense sit on my tongue, ready to spill venom, but they don’t come. There’s nothing but internal contempt and self-hatred filling my lungs and burning its way through my veins.
Finally, I settle on the same defense I always spit when nothing better comes. “You don’t know—”
He throws up his hand, cutting me off. “Yeah. I don’t know shit. I got that.” And then, I watch him walk away from me, and he should stay away. Like, really. He should, but he fucking won’t.
He’ll be back later because even though I treat him as shitty as everyone else, he still comes back again and again, enduring my abuse for reasons I can’t really begin to understand. And even though I can’t stand it, I still let him because I can’t fucking be alone.
It’s pathetic.
I’m pathetic.
And lost.
And so, so alone.